City Of Maquoketa Weekly Update (10/7/24 – 10/11/24)

The Maquoketa City Manager said that the city staff had a very busy week and they were back at it again to prepare a large City Council agenda for next Monday night the 21st.  City Staff continued to field HVAC bid related questions. Josh Boldt, Maquoketa City Manager, said that he took around lighting architects to review city facilities in preparation for a bid document that will upgrade city lighting and increase facility energy efficiency.

In Community Development news, last week the Maquoketa Betterment Corporation opened final engineering/architecture offers on the Green Space Redevelopment project. Stickley Morton in partnership with WHKS is recommended firm. They will bid the redevelopment project in February 2025.

In Police Department news, On Monday, October 7th Robert “Bob” Blake was sworn in by Mayor Tom Messerli as the newest officer for the Maquoketa Police Department. Officially, Rob’s first day with the department was September 21st. The first couple of weeks for every officer typically consists of an orientation of the City and its facilities, policy, and procedure acknowledgements as well as weapons training. Rob beings his field training program this week and for the next seven to eight months.  While our field training program is only three months long, Rob will start the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy on January 6th for another 16 weeks of training Graduating from the Academy in April 2025. Rob now joins his brother Dan in the Law Enforcement family.

In Fire Department news, last week was Fire Prevention week. Fire Prevention officer Greg Bopes put together another very successful program for Pre-K and Kindergarten kids in the Maquoketa Community School District. Approximately 230 kids visited the fire station and learned about fire safety. The highlight of their day was getting a ride back to school on a fire truck. Operation E.D.I.T.H. , Exit Drills In The Home, was held on Wednesday night and had 1,286 citizens participate. About an hour before Operation E.D.I.T.H. they were dispatched to a combine smoking. Upon their arrival the owner had the fire out with minimal damage to the combine. Last week’s training was for the rescue squad. The toured the hospital and reviewed their new ambulance. Due to very dry conditions and very little rain Jackson County is under a Burn Ban until further notice.

In Water-Wastewater news, they’re were in full stream of flushing all fire hydrants with a few odor and color complaints. They are about 1/2 way complete, they are in Ward 5 and have 2 wards left.  The solar panel project at the water treatment plant has gone in extremely fast this week and they will be tying into the electric grid.  They had 33 door hangers and 6 shutoffs among dealing with a couple water service line issues.

In Public Works news, the Public Works crew painted the parking spots on South Olive that just got resurfaced. The Corrective Asphalt contractor came to town last week and started seal coating some streets. They finished up last week on Wednesday morning. Tuesday on the 14th they started sweeping up the excess off the streets and that should help the dust. They also have been doing asphalt work on East Pleasant Street, the edges of that street are looking better.